How to move on from bottles?

DD was BF until 6mo and happily moved onto bottles. At 5mo we started giving her sips of water out of a tommee tippee beaker which she was and still is fine with. At 10mo we tried to introduce more grown up beakers/toddler training cups etc for her milk. She refused them point blank, we kept trying every week or so but she just wouldn't take to them. I have bought probably everything going on the market that I know about, our cupboard is bursting with unused brightly coloured plastic cups.

I wasn't too worried but she's now 13mo and we've been trying regulary and she just refuses. She'll happily drink from them if it's water but when she tastes milk she throws it away. I'm worried about her teeth (she has 11) and speech development if we carry on with bottles.

I read on here a while ago about a woman in a similar position and it was suggested to her that she should try being stubborn and simply offering the new cup and not offering an alternative for 3 days. So I tried this and it didn't work. She just refused for 3 days and was in a total state. She wouldn't sleep and spent the whole time grumpy and worn out.

Some people might suggest dropping the bottles and making sure she had lots of cheese, yogurt etc in her diet but I have tried this also and without the milk she just doesn't sleep. She has 3 bottles a day, 6:30am, 2:30pm and 7pm. Although she doesn't need milk to go to actually go to sleep I guess she must just think "hang on I haven't had any milk today, I'm not going to sleep".

I've been very patient about it and trying to make it fun or even ignoring the issue like it's just her normal bottle but she's not playing ball. So what do I do? If I drop the milk and replace with other calcium she won't sleep but if I carry on with the bottles then I'm risking damage to her teeth and speach development. Any amazing little bottles out there that I don't know of or any amazing ideas?

Hi lizzy, I don't really have any practical advice but from a personal point of view I can't see how having a bottle 3 times a day will affect speech. If my ds1 is anything to go by it used to take him all of 10 mins to drain his milk at that age. I have never really understood the whole drop bottles at 1 business... I know bf encourages correct oral development , but does anyone stop bf at1 to express and put in a cup so teeth don't get damaged? I probably need to research all this more, but perhaps you could thoroughly clean teeth after a feed if your dd doesn't feed to sleep, continue with offering cups and perhaps she will come to an age where she accepts. I would be interested to know if anyone else will come along and explain to me, sorry not meaning to hijack your thread, but I am just wondering whether trying to stop bottles is more stress than its worth for you at the moment.

smk84, my understanding re why BF does not cause tooth decay the same way as bottles is that when the child breastfeeds, the breast goes in deeper in the mouth and the milk goes pretty much straight down the throat (similar to drinking through a straw I guess). With bottles, the teat tends to stay up against the front teeth thereby soaking the teeth in the liquid. I don't see how this is a problem, so long as the child isn't allowed to go to sleep with the bottle and the teeth are cleaned regularly. Also, in order to get milk from a breast, the child has to actively suck, whereas with a bottle, the milk will drip out even without sucking.. HTH